English fixtures honour Hillsborough dead

London: Football grounds all across England fell silent on Saturday to mark the looming 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.

The tragedy, which took place on April 15, 1989, saw 96 Liverpool fans die as a result of a crush at the Leppings Lane end of Sheffield Wednesday`s Hillsborough ground, where the Merseyside club were playing in a FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest.

Play was halted in the sixth minute as fans desperately climbed over barriers in order to reach the safe haven of the pitch.

This weekend, all major matches in England kicked off seven minutes later than normal, with a minute`s silence observed before kick-off.

At Hillsborough, for their Championship match against Blackburn, Wednesday replaced 96 blue seats with white seats bearing red roses at the end of the stadium where the Liverpool fans died.

Liverpool will face Manchester City at Anfield on Sunday, when another silence will be held.

The legacy of judge Peter Taylor`s 1990 report into what happened at Hillsborough was the abolition of standing terraces at major England grounds and the creation of all-seater stadia.

However, a new inquest into the deaths of the Hillsborough 96 started in Warrington, east of Liverpool, on April 1 after the original coroner`s verdicts were quashed by the High Court in December 2012 amid claims of a police cover-up.